Joy Buolamwini

Joy Adowaa Buolamwini is the computer scientist who proved that artificial intelligence is racist — and forced the tech industry to reckon with it. As a graduate student at MIT, she discovered that facial recognition systems from major tech companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon failed to accurately identify darker-skinned faces, particularly those of Black women, with error rates as high as 34.7% compared to less than 1% for lighter-skinned men. Her research changed the global conversation about AI bias.

Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 1989, to Ghanaian parents, Buolamwini grew up in Mississippi and attended the Georgia Institute of Technology, Fulbright University in Zambia, and the University of Oxford before earning her master's and Ph.D. at MIT Media Lab. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League to fight bias in AI systems and coined the term "the coded gaze" to describe how bias gets embedded in technology.

Buolamwini's work led to IBM discontinuing its facial recognition product, Amazon imposing a moratorium on police use of its recognition technology, and the introduction of federal legislation to regulate facial recognition. She was featured in the documentary Coded Bias (2020) and her book, Unmasking AI, was published to critical acclaim. She has been named to Time's 100 Most Influential People and to Forbes's 30 Under 30. Her work proves that the fight for civil rights now includes the fight for algorithmic justice.